Melinda Brown
December 26, 2012
Themes in U.S. & World History
GKE Task 1
There are many factors that can affect the expansion of a country. The factors could be due to environmental or geographic changes. The United States was greatly affected by some geographical changes. Two of the biggest factors that helped the expansion of the United States were the Louisiana Purchase and manifest destiny.
The Louisiana Purchase expanded the size of the United States by more than double what it was. Thomas Jefferson made the purchase of about 828,000 square miles on April 30, 1803. This land was spread from the Mississippi river to the Rocky Mountains. This would be the states currently known as
Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming.
This was a good purchase because we need to be able to cross the Mississippi river in order to expanded trading of goods. The port in New Orleans greatly helped the need for international relationships and trading. It grew into one of the biggest ports. When Thomas Jefferson made the purchase of the land he did not know exactly what he was purchasing. The Louisiana Purchase leads to the Lewis and Clark Expedition which in turn lead to the acquisition of the Oregon Territory.
The acquisition of the Oregon Territory lead us into California. In 1848 James Wilson Marshall said that he had found gold in California and no one believed him. In May of 1848 Sam Brannan also said he found gold. He put gold flakes on bottles and other items to get people to believe. This led us to the California Gold Rush which was a great factor in the expansion of the western United States. The gold rush leads to the creation of towns and economic growth. The gold rush had an impact on the transportation in United States as it leads to the 1st Transcontinental Railroad in 1863.
The environment can also have an effect on the development of human society. The Mesopotamia had a challenging environment. Mesopotamia was intertwined with two rivers. The two rivers were Tigris and Euphrates. These rivers made trade and transportation possible which is very important to the growth of any human society. The economy was mostly agricultural although they had abnormal rain patterns. They made contacts with other cultural that lead to a connection with Ancient Western Asia. There agricultural and farming needs also lead to the invention of the plow.
The Mesopotamia and Egyptian cavitations had many similarities. Although they had many similarities they were very different cultural. Egyptian civilization learned from the Mesopotamia about trade and technology. They both had good agricultural which helped develop the society. There political beliefs were focused in different areas than each other.
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